Saturday, 31 December 2016

I am psyched that everyone is excited about this project. Okay so here is some more info on the project.

Stardred is a tactical skirmish miniatures game for 2 or more players. It will be initially available as a PDF and print on demand book. The beta will be distributed as a reward for my 'beta tier' patreons- who will receive a free pdf copy when launched.

What's special about it?

Stardred is a mental arithmetic free system. It is designed with specific consideration for young players, people with dyscalculia, issues with short term memory, attention deficit disorder and so forth. The benefit of this for other players is that it takes off the load on your brain so you can relax, maybe enjoy a few drinks or get into a game after a long hard day crunching numbers.

How does it work?

Stardred uses dice totting for all the maths. You pick up dice for positive modifiers, whilst your opponent picks up dice for negative ones.

Both players roll and the outcome is determined by who has the highest number of dice that roll hits.

The cool thing about this mechanic is that the dice roll outcome is immediately obvious at a glance- no rolling then adding modifiers to determine the outcome. It gives it the excitement of a 'craps shoot' when you roll.

Dice

You can play with D6, D8 or fudge dice. For fudge dice, rolling a negative is a miss. For D6, rolling a 5 or 6 is a miss. If you want to play with D8- you can use 567 or just 67 as misses- depending on your playing style. You can take blank dice and just mark 2 faces.

You also need 1d8 for scattering (or an arrow die) and a 6 sided custom 'action' die (made from a blank die or by putting stickers on a d6).

Any miniatures:

Stardred works at any scale. You can use any miniatures you like, and convert them to your hearts content. Scratch build your own vehicles and walkers, use action figures, paper minis, pogs or even play with funko pops!

Setting: 'Universe of Yes:

Stardred comes with 'light fluff' explaining the gist of the universe. However it is focused on inspiring your ideas and imagination rather than limiting. It leaves a lot of room so you can incorporate any miniatures you like.

Typical scifi fare like a federated star trading system, universal currency and languages (info so you can swear fluently at your fellow players in alien dialects), star guilds, some systems and planets are named and described. But it is a spine, not a cage.

In this universe humans, aliens, droids, psychics and mutants can all work together. You can build your away team however you like.

No army lists

Rather than army lists, each character in your team has a creds cost per mission, based on how powerful they are. You can fit them out with weapons, tech and armor.

Custom profile, weapon, tech and armor card templates will be available to download and print. These fit in standard trading card sleeves.

Gameplay:

The focus is on small to medium skirmishes on tables with lots of cover, tight coridoors, weird anomalies, traps (toxic dumps, mines, deadly alien plants wandering monsters) and lootable objects.

Play is fast and tactical, positions of your individual characters are important, what they have armed.

Comms channels are a vital part of the game, hacking enemy systems, jamming, magnetic interference, psionics and so forth are mixed in with brutal laser battles. Psychological warefare is included, and characters can bug out and act weirdly and be driven insane. Yes, dust off your Reaper Bones Cthulhu minis folks.

Campaign rules are included. You can even play cooperative with a games master.

Things it ain't:

Mass combat rules needing lots of figures. Two armies charging at each other on an open table. Sexist, racist, ableist or homophobic. Minimal book keeping. A roleplaying game system.

Product tie ins:

I probably will make some minis for it, but the idea is that it is for independent mini makers who make retro inspired figures to come together and be celebrated. Expect to see figures from all my mates companies gracing the pages. I will use the book as a showcase for these companies to plug their gear. Much cross links, mang promos, so indy, wow.

We probably will do a box set with laser cut tokens, rulers, custom dice and so forth at some stage.

Thought I would kick off the year with something fresh and fun. Since Skulldred is stuck on HDDs in Sydney, and I am in Melbourne- I decided to forge ahead on Stardred whilst I wait for the resources to ship up my stuff.

To get me in the mood, I did this quick mock up of the beta cover. It's only about 25% done but I wanted to post it and go to bed ;)

This is a photo of my laptop- so it looks shitty.

Stardred is an space opera style skirmish game, harking back to science fiction as we thought it would look like in the 1980s. It's set in an infinite universe of possibility and adventure, with alien races rubbing shoulders with hardened space mercenaries, star pirates and stunted starminers trying to make a few cred. It's all laser lances, reflex shields, gravity well grenades, scramblers, psychics, mutants, weird alien plants, battle droids and cyborg dinosaur mounts.

You can make your own alien races and hardware up, there are no restrictive army lists or codexes- so you can use any minis at any scale, from any manufacturer. Works coop, GM'ed, one on one, space dungeon exploration and so forth.